Studies have suggested that magnetic stimuli can affect behavioral, cellular and physiological functions of animals. As a result magnetic therapy was developed for the therapeutic treatment of pain in humans as well as for the general well-being of humans.
Simple pulsed magnetic fields with very high time changing magnetic fields (10,000 Tesla/s) (Barker et al., 1987) have been used for the stimulation of nerves (depolarisation and induction of action potential) and for the treatment of primarily affective disorders. These pulses are, in general, simple unipolar or bipolar pulses which are designed to induce currents in nerves and, in themselves, do not carry information as a function of time within each pulse sequence nor can the pulses be used for any diagnostic classification.
UK Patent Application 2 270 000 discloses a magnetic field induction therapy apparatus for the therapeutic treatment of pain and the alleviation of circulatory and respiratory problems.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,678,337 discloses an apparatus to be used indoors to generate magnetic fields to stimulate natural displacement currents in humans and thus generate general beneficial effects in such humans.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,066,272 discloses the use of magnetic pulses which are capable of inducing eddy currents in nearby brain tissue of sufficient strength and duration to cause tissue stimulation and disruption of high level cognitive function and, therefore, are useful in performing functional mapping of the brain. The pulses can also stimulate peripheral nerves and provide measurements of nerve conduction velocity for certain disease diagnosis or motor evoked potentials for surgical monitoring.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,935,054 discloses the use of weak externally applied magnetic fields for influencing the nervous system of a subject and in particular, as an aid to relaxation, sleep or arousal and clinically for the control of tremors, seizures and emotional disorders.
None of these prior art references, nor the literature in general, has contemplated or actually demonstrated that pulsed magnetic fields could be used for the diagnostic classification of disease, including diseases and health states associated with acute or chronic pain, fatigue or disability. Furthermore, none of the prior art has suggested or demonstrated the ability to separate patients into different disease categories based on exposure to pulsed magnetic fields.
It was previously demonstrated by the present Applicant in U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,953 (the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference) that specific low frequency pulsed magnetic fields (Cnps) having a plurality of intermittent waveforms could be used in methods for treating physiological, neurological and behavioral disorders. It is now unexpectedly demonstrated that such Cnps can be used for the diagnostic classification of disease.